Conduct of Science Homework
Honors Biology
1. One of the most difficult—and most important—aspects of experimental science is choosing a
good hypothesis on which to experiment. Look at the following statements, and tell whether it
would be a good scientific hypothesis. Give a reason for your answer (for example, how you
would test it, or why it couldn’t be tested).
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Plants absorb water through their leaves instead of their roots.
Mice require calcium for developing strong bones.
Dogs are happy when you feed them steak.
An active volcano can be prevented from erupting if you sacrifice a virgin each full
moon.
The higher the intelligence of an animal, the more easily it can be domesticated.
The earth was created by an all-powerful being
HIV (human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS) can be transmitted by cat fleas.
2. When you design an experiment, you must be very careful of the conditions. Remember, you
only wish to change one variable that is vital to test your hypothesis. Everything else must be
rigorously standardized.
A team of researchers is testing a new drug, XYZ, on AIDS patients. They expect
patients taking the new drug will develop fewer AIDS-related illnesses. However,
like most AIDS medications, they do not expect XYZ to cure AIDS.
a. What is the hypothesis?
b. How would you design an experiment to test this hypothesis?
c. What would be the variable?
d. How would you set up your control?
e. What would be some of the things you would have to keep standardized?
3. Choose a scientific question that interests you (this can be in any field of science, not just
biology). Write a hypothesis, and then describe the experiment you would use to test your
hypothesis. Make sure you have one variable, which you carefully control, and you standardize
everything else.
Please try to come up with your own idea, and not the well-worn examples you have heard
millions of times in middle school texts.
SI Homework
Honors Biology
You may answer these questions directly on this sheet.
1. Which SI base unit would you use to measure:
Volume of blood in the human body
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Mass of an iguana
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Temperature of a chemical reaction
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2. Convert the following units. Use dimensional analysis if possible.
27 mg → g
29 m → km
42 cL→ L
290 μm → m
100 μL → mL
38 mg → cg
3. Other common SI units that you will use in latter science courses are below. Use other sources
to determine what they measure.
Joule
Dalton
Pascal
Mole